The Ant and The Grasshopper

[tlongII]

TRADITIONAL VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the
ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or
shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays
the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while others are
cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the
shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home
with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper
is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the
grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being
Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's
house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."
Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's
sake.

Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with
Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper,
and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his
fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the summer! The ant is fined for failing
to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to
pay his
retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary
gets her old law firm to
represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the
case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton
appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses
the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of
the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens
to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't
maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house,
now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once
peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008!!!!

[Mixability]

:lmao :tu

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Good point Tlong. That just locked my vote Hilary. Fuck the ants.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Good point Tlong. That just locked my vote Hilary. Fuck the ants.you're voting for hillary?!

be prepared everyone if cheney swears her in.

[peewee's lovechild]

Are the grasshoppers supposed to be African Americans, or is it the spiders at the end?

[MoSpur]

That is cool TlongII

[T Park]

That is friggen awesome TLong :tu :tu :tu

[E20]

Somone post Will Smiths and Carlton's redention of the story.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Yeah, point taken, but it also misses the point that economic inequalities are entrenched within our societies and we need to do something about them, we just don't do it very well yet.

What about the Grasshoppers who do work, but because of circumstances (family background, not suited to mainstream education, whatever) they are on $5.25 an hour and can't get their heads above water?

You want more homeless people on your streets? Get rid of public housing and welfare. Better yet, work out a better system to give a leg up to the genuinely disadvantaged.

It's easy to solve the problems of the world when you are comfortable and middle class like us.

[ShoogarBear]

Are the grasshoppers supposed to be African Americans, or is it the spiders at the end?The spiders are the Mexicans.

Interesting you left out the part about the ants getting farm subsidies, Halliburton defense contracts, and "legacy" admissions.

[T Park]

Better yet, work out a better system to give a leg up to the genuinely disadvantaged.

How about the disadvantaged going out getting work so they can help themselves.

You should come with me next time when I go down there offering 400 dollars a week pay, free room and board, free use of washer and dryer .
Pretty much a free apartment with electricity running water, all that stuff, and get told "Sorry, doesn't sound right for me"

Then we shall see how you want to creat the system for them.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

T Park, your offer sounds like a good one. How many people take you up on it vs how many don't, and who exactly do you offer this help to?

My point was that it's easy for those of us with decent family backgrounds, education, skills, etc. to judge those at the bottom of the heap as layabouts and losers. But did you ever stop to think how they got to be there? Ever consider that they may be so down on themselves that they can't make a change for the better?

There are lots of reasons why people end up with screwed up lives, and as a cabbie I learned a lesson in humility. Most people down the bottom of the ladder are not lazy, they are so screwed up by their past that they don't know even how to take the first step towards improving their lives, or have the confidence to do so.

Also, how does labelling these people as "losers" help them? It just entrenches that belief within them. We need to lift people up and give them a purpose, not beat them down.

"Get a job" is such a cop-out line. Most people will, given the chance, and those who won't often need real help to make the step - that's the bit we as societies need to learn to do better.

I don't believe in a "welfare state", I'm not a socialist, but I do believe that a "subsistence safety net" keeps a lot of people off the streets and out of crime, and that's a good thing if nothing else.